If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll look at a few more configuration options for VA Smalltalk - at the image level, rather than at the granularity of the coding assistance tools. To start, go to the launcher and select Options<<Open Preferences Window:

A Tabbed settings window comes up, with various options on the tabs:

For example - don't like the browser selections that VA picks for you? Go to the Individual Browser tab and change it:

Want to change the debugger selections? You can do that too:

It's probably worth your while spending a few minutes examine the various options

That’s the difference I see people missing all the time. They’re chattering about how Google might benefit, how this strengthens the Android platform. They’re missing the point. Apple and Amazon are increasingly in the content business, bringing a real stream of cash off of content, and particularly for Amazon, the hardware is just a necessary tool. They care about it the same way retailers care about their store because a good customer experience is critical if you want customers to spend money. But in the end, what they want is for you to use their device to spend money . People were misled thinking that Amazon was taking on the booksellers. Borders was just collateral damage.

What makes the iPad - and now the Fire - compelling, is the content, and the ease with which you get content onto the device. Amazon gets that, just as Apple does. The others? Not so much.

I was speaking to my daughter about this yesterday. She likes her Android phone, but really, really hates the work she has to go through to get music on it. The specs are way less relevant than the apps and interfaces are.

A few weeks ago, my XBox Live account was blocked after a hacking event - someone managed to buy 10,000 MS points through my account. Microsoft was really good about things - they blocked the purchases (when I called my credit card company the charges had been reversed already), and, once the account was restored (today), they gave me:

2 months pre-paid XBox Live

800 Microsoft Points

They were really nice on the phone when I dealt with them, too. Heck, it doesn't even look like I've lost any of the achievements I picked up while I was offline, and the emails said that would happen. All in all, it went pretty well.

I remember that year - in August, the Yankees were 14.5 games out, and the season looked like it was over. One amazing month and a one game playoff later, and the red Sox were down.

Now:

The Rays' win came four minutes after Boston blew a one-run lead in the ninth at Baltimore and lost 4-3. The Red Sox, who held a nine-game lead over the Rays in early September, and Tampa Bay began the final day of the regular season tied for the wild card.

The Sox blew a late game lead tonight, and the Rays came back from 7 down (sadly, against the Yankees). However, I'm happy to be back to normality, where the Red Sox choke at the end of the season, and the Yankees win the pennant :)

My daughter came home after a long Greyhound trip, complaining that her iPad didn't play sound through the headphones. On the off chance that I'd find something simple, I Googled - and it turned out that this thread gave me a solution. My guess? Some app left sound in a bad state, and Skype, when starting up, resets the bad state.

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the configurability of the new coding assistance feature of VA Smalltalk 8.5 (which was ,a href="blogView?entry=3494234789">covered in another screencast). If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll look at configuring the new Coding Assistance (auto complete) that is part of the new VA Smalltalk 8.5. To get there, go to the Options menu item in the launcher, and select the pull right for Code Assist. Note that you can turn it on and off, or select more granular options, which we'll do now:

Select the Edit option - you'll get a preferences window:

Now you can toggle any of the available settings - for instance, you can change the key for accepting an assist from <Enter> to <Tab>. The changes are immediate, and note that you can simply restore the defaults at any time.

Cincom has updated the license for the download versions of VisualWorks and ObjectStudio - it seems to be a lot more reasonable than earlier drafts that were up on the site. More importantly, the license that comes with the download now matches what you'll find on the site, so there's no confusion as to what the terms are. Check it out.

The bizarro universe beast that is ACTA is still alive, and it looks like the power elites of the Western world want to ram it down all of our throats, regardless of how the law is supposed to work. Via Techdirt:

Despite serious Constitutional concerns in the US, and significant legal questions in the EU, it appears that the US and the EU, along with most of the other participants in the ACTA negotiations are planning to sign ACTA this weekend in Japan. In the US, this may very well lead to a Constitutional challenge. President Obama, via the USTR, is ignoring the Senate's oversight concerning treaties, by pretending ACTA is not a treaty, but rather an "executive agreement." Pretty much everyone else agrees that ACTA is a binding treaty -- in fact, EU negotiators have been quite vocal on that point.

All I can say is wow - the gall involved here is massive. If this thing is so important, it can go to the Senate and follow the process. The fact that the powers that be want to avoid that route is very, very telling.

I got a call from my daughter - her school basically closes down for a few days for the upcoming Jewish holidays, and she decided to come home - we looked into Greyhound. That's when the hilarity ensued, at least for some types of hilarity.

Try this: visit any airline website, or a site like Expedia. See if you can buy a ticket at any time of day. Gosh, it works. Now try looking into buying a Greyhound bus ticket at a time when one of the stations involved is closed for the day.

Not having noticed that the web is a 24x7 thing, they don't allow that. So... do they run little courier sacks between stations to handle the transactions? Do they have a teletype machine at the back of each station spewing out orders? Are they just stupid?

This week Dave Buck talks about some ideas he has for expanding Simberon, his consulting business. If you want to see those details evolving over time, thne you'll want to subscribe to his blog, where more details will be coming as they are available.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

This week Dave Buck talks about some ideas he has for expanding Simberon, his consulting business. If you want to see those details evolving over time, thne you'll want to subscribe to his blog, where more details will be coming as they are available.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

Some video from ESUG 2011 has come online - the IWST sessions. More is coming - I know how much time it takes to get things encoded into a format that is easy to post, and small enough to encourage access....

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at a new feature in VA Smalltalk 8.5 - code completion in the browsers. It works pretty well, and will improve your VA experience a lot If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll look at one of the nicer new features of VA Smalltalk 8.5 - code completion in the browsers. To demonstrate, we've created a new class with an instance variable - below, we started initializing it to an instance of OrderedCollection:

Notice how it narrowed the possible selections down to the only one possible. If there were more matches, it would have given us a list. To take the selection, simply hit return - or to not take it and continue, just keep typing; the pop up does not have keyboard focus. Next, note what happens before we finish typing #new:

Here we see a list of all possible matches that extend from the three letters that are entered. If we hit period, the pop up will be dismissed. To take one of the selections, use the arrow keys, then hit return. Again, to just finish on your own, simply keep typing. Finally, what about instance variables?

VA Notes that one of the instance variables is a possible match, and offers it up. gain, select with return, or keep typing.